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ICOM director: levy revenue arriving; consultant to map 911 needs and radio upgrades
Summary
Sofia Cofield, executive director of the regional ICOM 911 agency, told Oak Harbor council that a consultant will finish a needs assessment in August, a Little Mountain tower extension completed in Dec. 2025 improved coverage, and early sales-tax receipts are being evaluated to guide spending.
Sofia Cofield, executive director of ICOM, told the Oak Harbor city council at its July 14 workshop that the regional 911 sales tax approved by voters in April 2025 and effective Jan. 1, 2026 is beginning to reach the agency and is already funding preliminary upgrades and planning.
Cofield said ICOM received a small first payment in March 2026 (an expected timing artifact of tax collection), with April coming in on par with projections and May slightly higher. The agency has formed a finance committee and hired TSSI Consulting in January 2026 to conduct an operational and technical needs assessment; the consultant’s final presentation is scheduled for August 2026, and Cofield said the report will form a roadmap for future spending.
The ICOM director highlighted a completed state grant project at “Little Mountain,” where crews raised an existing radio tower by 30 feet (from about 160 to 190 feet) in December 2025. Cofield said the extension has improved microwave and radio coverage toward Camano Island and parts of Whidbey Island and helped reduce previously reported dead zones.
Council members asked about radio encryption and whether the public would lose the ability to listen on scanners. Cofield said many counties are moving toward encrypted interagency radio traffic for certain channels and that there will likely be a day when some agency traffic is not publicly audible, but she had no firm date to announce. On public access to incident information, she noted that texting to 911 is supported in the state and that dispatchers can correspond via text after an initial location or address is provided.
Cofield invited council and the public to tour ICOM’s 911 dispatch floor and said she will return with the consultant’s recommendations next month. The agency stressed that the Revised Code of Washington (RCW) limits the uses of sales-tax proceeds to design, acquisition, construction, equipping, operation, maintenance and repair of emergency communications systems and related functions, and that allocations will follow those statutory constraints.
Next steps: the council will receive TSSI’s needs assessment in August, and staff will use that report and the finance committee’s guidance to propose spending priorities and budget adjustments.
